Tuesday, 8 December 2015

Space Oddities: Only God Forgives (2013) Film Review

Fig 1: Film poster

Nicolas Winding Refn’s movie “Only God Forgives” (2013) is seen by
most as the Marmite of cinema – a film that is either celebrated for it’s
uniqueness and bold character, or heavily criticized for the non existence of an
orderly plot, strange personalities of it’s characters and putrid violent
scenes.

However, Refn indeed intended for this
movie to not be slotted into a particular genre of film. Yes, there may be
violence and action, but it is not portrayed in the way you would expect. Upon
viewing, the atmosphere of “Only God Forgives” is ethereal, plus
sits on the perimeter of familiar human actions and settings. Jesse Cataldo
describes the start of the film: “...starts
out in hell, then pushes even further into demonic darkness” (Cataldo,
2013); a film not shy to delve the viewer immediately into it’s strange world.
Peter Bradshaw also goes on to explain: “It
has its own miasma of anxiety and evil, taking place in a universe of fear” (Bradshaw,
2013) indeed, the world of this film is shrouded in a mist of anxiety and
feeling on edge as to what will happen next.

Figs 2 & 3: An example of mood lighting

A notable factor are the strong colours
and mood lighting of scenes. These are also very closely related Dario Argento’s
“Suspiria” (1977) in which the whole
scene is lit with a saturated single or combination of contrasting colours. This
impacts on the mood and suspense of the scene, aided by the intense music that
also can be derived from “Suspiria”.Otherwise dimly lit, these saturated colours
also induce the feeling of other worldliness, as in this present moment, all are conscious that the real world isn’t constantly lit with bright colours.

Another major organ that gives this film
life are the outrageous violent scenes that don’t seem to make sense. Cataldo
describes it as: “...sadistically
couching its brutality within a high-style pictorialism that's both hard to
watch and difficult to look away from” (Cataldo, 2013) In agreement to this
statement, this movie does not shy away from the gory scenes, but they are
depicted in such a way that the viewer has a need to keep watching with fascination.

Fig 4: The blank expression

Adding to the ethereal feel of “Only
God Forgives”, most to all characters hold a blank facial expression and
often stare at each other. As well as this, very little dialogue is spoken
throughout. These elements create a sense of confusion, uneasiness and anticipation of something loud to come about. Refn also provides slow, panning
camera movement to compliment the sometime seemingly slow motion movement of
the characters – and what can be noticed here is a link to God like
characteristics; for example, holy, high power figures are often depicted as
almost dainty and move slowly to show they are in control. This slow movement
that is seen with each character could also suggest that each one has a God
inside them.

Fig 5: Hands

Hands and arms – scenes of these body
parts are introduced throughout – to Chang slicing off Choi’s hand to Julian
(Ryan Gosling) looking at his hands and washing them. It’s quite a mystery as
to why there is a focus on the hands and arms, but one interpretation can be
the masculinity of the male characters, and that being “sliced off”.

Fig 6: Crystal

Particular ruthless scenes of “Only
God Forgives” include the murder of Julians “cartoonishly cruel mother” (Cataldo, 2013) and Julian slicing her
abdomen to put his hand inside. Whilst doing so, flash backs of his favourite
prostitute appear and he remembers her touching herself and him putting his
hand into her private area, so when entering his hand within his mother there
is a sickening connotation to this memory.

Before her death, Crystal openly demeans her son Julian, discussing that
his genitelia where smaller than the rest of his brothers, and that Julian is
seemingly happy that his older brother was murdered. When asked why Julian
accepts the torments, he simply replies “because
she’s my mother”. This suggests that the only female he could really be
close to was his mother; backed up also that he was tied up by Mai so he won’t
touch her.

The“antagonist”, Chang can be seen
as the God of this film – controlling the plot and having followers beside him.
He also carries around a broken sword and mercilessly slays whoever is in his
way, making people fear him. Julian also has visions that his arms are cut off
by Chang, and so Chang also mentally makes his presence known in the
characters.

Fig 7: Chang and the iconic sword

The film has a understandably bizarre
and confusing plot; Based in Bangkok, Julains elder brother murders a prostitute, but is himself killed by the father. His mother flies over to
identify the body, meets Mai and Julian and brutally demeans her son and she
authorizes the killing of Choi as revenge. Crystal also learns that Chang was
part of her sons murder and plans his assassination, but in the end she is
killed herself. Charlie Ling is intent of killing Chang's family,but Julian shoots him before he shoots the
young daughter. A small sense of humanity is shown here. Julian once again has
a vision that Chang slices his arms off, and the film ends in an almost comical
Karaoke session, where Chang sings slightly off key in front of an audience of
police officers.

Understandably, Refn created a film that
is mind boggling, violent and seemingly makes no sense, yet the environment and
strong cinematography indeed make up for these elements. After witnessing “Only God Forgives” its true that it
doesn’t fit into a particular genre, and even more so, it will not leave you
for a long time.